Bob Dylan arrived in New York on January 24, 1961. He set out to meet Woody Guthrie, whom he described as "the true voice of the American spirit." Shown here is Dylan in New York in September of 1961.
(Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images)

Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964 where he was an acoustic icon. The following year, he went electric.
(Redferns / Getty Images)

Dylan at a press conference in 1966.
(Redferns / Getty Images)

Dylan performing at the Oakland Coliseum Arena on November 13, 1978. Four days later a fan threw a small silver cross on stage after most likely noticing his poor health. Later that night in a Tucson hotel room, Dylan says Jesus appeared and put his hand on him.
(Redferns / Getty Images)

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Dylan said that in 1968, when he was 27. He turns 70 this month, as enigmatic as ever, a traveling troubadour on a self-proclaimed Never Ending Tour that began in 1988 and saw him playing 102 shows last year. He has been the young protest singer claiming he’s unconcerned with politics, the confessional songwriter who has offered as many myths as truths about his personal life, and the aging chronicler of the American folk songbook.

Here are 10 defining Dylan moments.

1. The Teen Rebel With a Cause Growing up in Hibbing, Minnesota, a young Robert Zimmerman, "Zimbo" to his classmates, started playing the piano at 11 before shifting to a cheap acoustic guitar and falling for the songs of Hank Williams, Elvis Presley and Little Richard. As a young teen, Dylan fixated on the actor James Dean, pasting pictures on his bedroom walls. He was a rocker first, though, playing Little Richard tunes with his band, The Shadow Blasters, at a Hibbing High talent show on April 5, 1957.

2. Landing Up on the Downtown SideHe arrived in New York on January 24, 1961, after a meandering cross-country journey with two University of Wisconsin students. Depending upon which version you believe, he either headed out the next morning or four mornings later to meet Woody Guthrie, whom he described as “the true voice of the American spirit.” Guthrie, mostly confined to Greystone Park Hospital, was fading away with Huntington’s Disease. They struck up a friendship. Back in Greenwich Village, where he played Woody’s tunes in the coffeehouses, Dylan soon wrote "Song to Woody," one of two originals on his debut, Bob Dylan, recorded for Columbia in just two afternoons for the princely sum of $402. The disc, released in March 1962, sold just 5,000 copies its first year, and there were reports the label might drop Dylan.

3. Pellets of Poison Flooding Their Waters In late September 1962, with the nuclear sword of the Cuban missile crisis hanging over the world, Dylan sat down at an old Remington typewriter and pounded out an apocalyptic poem titled “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” set to the melody of “Lord Randall,” a folk ballad. “The words came fast, very fast. It was a song of terror,” Dylan said later. “Line after line, trying to capture the feeling of nothingness.” Together with “Blowin’ in the Wind," “Masters of War” and “Talking World War III Blues,” “Hard Rain” would establish Dylan as the protest singer for a generation with the release of his second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan in May 1963.

4. To Be on Your Own On July 25, 1965, Dylan took the stage at the Newport Folk Festival, where he was an acoustic icon, with members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and famously plugged in. In what may be the most debated 16-minute set in popular music, they played howling versions of “Maggie’s Farm,” “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Phantom Engineeer,” an early draft of “It takes A Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry.” Many in the audience booed, labeling him a Judas to his folk followers. “Like a Rolling Stone,” released that week and later the lead track on Highway 61 Revisited, made Dylan a star, reaching second on the American charts. Depending upon the interpretation, the crowd booed because Dylan had gone electric, the sound was terrible or he played only three songs.

“I had a hit record out so I don’t know how people expected me to do anything different,” Dylan said two decades later.

5. Everybody Must Get Stoned During the first three months of 1966, Dylan took part in an improbably arranged marriage to a group of good ol’ boys from the Nashville studio set with no idea who he was. Their union created arguably the greatest double album in rock history, Blonde on Blonde. The sessions produced “Visions of Johanna,” “Sad Eyed Lady of The Lowlands,” “Just Like a Woman” and “Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again.” “The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the Blonde on Blonde album," Dylan said more than a decade later. “It’s that thin, that wild mercury sound. It's metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up.”

6. This Wheel’s On Fire “It was real early in the morning on top of a hill, near Woodstock,” Dylan said. I was drivin’ right straight up into the sun... I went blind for a second and I kind of panicked or something.” Dylan braked his Triumph 650 Bonneville motorcycle, locking the rear wheel and sending him sailing over the handlebars. The extent of his injuries on July 29, 1966. are foggy, like so many details of his life, although he was later seen wearing a neck brace. No police report was filed. In his autobiography, he barely mentions the accident, confessing: “Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race.” That he did. While he continued his prolific writing, the songs were quieter, more introspective. He hunkered down in Woodstock for a few years raising his family and would not tour again until 1974.

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